Harvey latest: One person dead in flooding in Houston

by Associated Press

An overturned trailer sits in a park in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in Aransas Pass, Texas. Harvey rolled over the Texas Gulf Coast on Saturday, smashing homes and businesses and lashing the shore with wind and rain so intense that drivers were forced off the road because they could not see in front of them. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

One person has died in flooding in Houston as Tropical Storm Harvey dumps rain on Southeast Texas.

Jason Wiersema of the Harris County medical examiner's office said late Saturday that his office had been notified that one person had died, but could not confirm the person's identity or cause of death.

It's the second confirmed death from Harvey.

Wiersema's comments came after Houston's mayor had said authorities are investigating the possibility that a motorist may have died in flooding. It wasn't clear whether that was the same person.

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10:45 p.m.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says authorities are investigating the possibility that a motorist may have died in flooding as Tropical Storm Harvey dumps rain on Southeast Texas.

Turner said at a news conference Saturday night that he had just gotten word that a woman apparently became trapped in a car and it wasn't yet clear whether she survived. He did not provide any additional details.

He and other officials were urging people not to leave their homes. Turner says "the streets are treacherous."

The National Hurricane Center says Harvey is weakening, but the tropical storm is barely moving as it dumps torrential rains.

Houston's interstate highways and major streets are starting to flood as Tropical Storm Harvey stalls over Southeast Texas.

Many of Houston's roads had spots of flooding Saturday night that were nearly impassable. The city's transportation authority counted more than 50 high water spots just a few hours into the storm passing through the area.

National Weather Service meteorologist Nikki Hathaway says between up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell within three hours. In some sections of south and southwest Harris County, where Houston is located, more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain had fallen in an hour.

Officials are urging people to stay off of the roads. The National Weather Service has received multiple reports of water rescues in Harris County and nearby areas. The Harris County sheriff's office said on Twitter that it rescued one driver from 3 feet (0.91 meters) of rushing water.

Hathaway says the weather service has issued a Flash Flood Emergency for the Harris County area until after 12:15 a.m.

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10 p.m.

The National Hurricane Center says Harvey is weakening, but the tropical storm is barely moving as it dumps torrential rains on parts of Texas.

The center says the storm is drifting over southeastern Texas, with torrential rains expected to continue.

The center said Saturday night that the storm now has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (64 kph). It's moving at just 1 mph (1.6 kph), so it's hanging around and dumping rain along the coast, including in Houston.

The center says Harvey is likely to weaken from a tropical storm to a tropical depression on Sunday. Harvey came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night.

Marilyn Shaughnessy didn't expect the worst of Tropical Storm Harvey to hit the Houston area until Sunday. But she opened a window Saturday afternoon to see a tornado bearing down on her house.

The tornado wound through the Houston suburb of Cypress, damaging several homes and buildings but causing no apparent injuries.

Shaughnessy, a retired police officer, says she had her family run to their laundry room and wait out the tornado. Their house shook and framed pictures fell off the walls.

It passed a few minutes later. Shaughnessy came outside to find small holes in her roof and wooden planks from her fence missing. Nearby, contractors tore the remains of a chimney off one home and sized up the broken windows of another.

Shaughnessy says she plans to stay in her home through the next several days, when heavy rain and strong winds are in the forecast.

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7 p.m.

The National Hurricane Center says torrential rain will continue as Tropical Storm Harvey drifts east-northeastward with very little additional motion expected over the next few days.

The center said in its Saturday evening update that maximum sustained winds have now decreased to 60 mph (96 kph) and additional weakening of winds is expected during the next day or two.

The tropical storm's center was about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Victoria, Texas. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 115 miles (185 km) from the storm's center.

Harvey came ashore in Texas on Friday night as the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade. A judge has confirmed one death and about a dozen injuries from the storm.

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6:50 p.m.

Authorities say sheriff's deputies in the Houston area saw a tornado touchdown about four times near Cypress as Tropical Storm Harvey pounds Texas.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office posted a video to Facebook on Saturday of Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaking to residents and news media about the tornado. Gonzalez says a car with a driver inside was flipped over by the tornado, but is OK. Gonzalez says he and deputies were seeing extensive damage to roofs, but had not heard of any injuries.

National Weather Service meteorologist Wendy Wong says that numerous tornadoes spawned by Harvey caused damage in Houston and the surrounding area — from around Matagorda on the coast to the Cypress area in the north. She said homes, vehicles and buildings were damaged.

More than a dozen Texas counties were under a tornado watch Saturday night.

Harvey came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

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6:15 p.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard has stationed rescue boats and planes at several locations around parts of Southeast Texas affected by Tropical Storm Harvey.

The Coast Guard's Houston-Galveston sector protects the coastline near the nation's fourth-largest city, a region home to a critical port and major oil refineries.

Capt. Kevin Oditt, the sector commander, told reporters Saturday that he's confident the refineries have made contingency plans for the rain and winds expected to pelt the area for several days.

The Coast Guard closed the Port of Houston Friday. At least two dozen boats in the sector are on standby for water rescues or other emergencies.

Further south along the Texas Gulf Coast, Coast Guard officers pulled 20 people in separate rescues from boats and barges.

Harvey came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

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5:45 p.m.

Officials say the U.S. Coast Guard has rescued at least 20 people in various incidents as Harvey came through Texas.

Capt. Tony Hahn, commander of the Corpus Christi sector, said Saturday that two helicopters managed to rescue 18 people — three people from a fishing boat, four from a barge and 11 from two tugboats — when it became safe enough to do so.

The Coast Guard also rescued two people and their dog after they became stranded near the city of Rockport, where damage from the hurricane is extensive. The Coast Guard says a helicopter crew spotted them just before noon Saturday. They were taken to a hospital, and they Coast Guard says they're in good condition. It was unclear whether or not they were in a boat when they were rescued.

Harvey came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

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5:30 p.m.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas are without power as work crews take stock of damage from what's now tropical storm Harvey.

The number of people without power has fluctuated throughout the day Saturday.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas manages about 90 percent of the state's electric grid and almost all of the area directly affected by Harvey. A spokeswoman for the council says that as of 5 p.m., the number of outages has dropped to just below 300,000. That number is down from about 338,000 outages reported by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at about 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Council spokeswoman Robbie Searcy says the organization has focused on working with providers to maintain the remainder of the electric grid not damaged by the storm while repairs are done on transformers in the affected area

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5:05 p.m.

The National Hurricane Center says that what is now Tropical Storm Harvey is barely moving as torrential rains continue in Texas.

The center's late Saturday afternoon update says the center of the storm is about 45 miles (72 km) west-northwest of Victoria, Texas, and little motion is expected during the next few days. The center says maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 65 mph (104 kph). Additional weakening is expected over the next day or two. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the storm's center.

The hurricane center says catastrophic and life-threatening flooding is expected across middle and upper Texas through Thursday, with isolated storm totals as high as 40 inches.

Harvey came ashore in Texas on Friday night as the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade. A judge has confirmed one death and about a dozen injuries from the storm.

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4:50 p.m.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says the National Weather Service has confirmed a tornado touched down in the Cameron Parish town of Hackberry.

The tornado hit about 12:25 p.m. Saturday. Edwards says there were no reports of injuries or fatalities but there was "significant property damage."

Meteorologist Jared Rackley says officials have yet to survey the area, but photos show an overturned camper and other damage.

In Texas, a judge has confirmed one death in Rockport that's being blamed on Harvey. Emergency crews are searching for victims.

Rackley says a tornado watch is up for most of southwest Louisiana and south-central Louisiana until 2 a.m. Sunday.

He urges residents to remain on guard as a heavy amount of rain was expected to fall on the state over the next several days.

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4:30 p.m.

Damage from Harvey in the coastal Texas city where one death has been reported includes toppled power poles, trees torn from their bases, wood framing ripped from houses and the metal sides torn off of a high school gym.

A Texas judge has confirmed one death Saturday in Rockport, where emergency crews are searching for victims.

The city is mostly a ghost town. Power is out, as are cellphone and internet service in what was mostly a ghost town. At the city marina, a handful of boats had sunk.

Those who stayed and ignored orders to leave before Harvey made landfall Friday night included Matthew Otero. His "Donuts Dat Rock" was open Saturday and serving coffee and kolaches, a doughnut-like item popular in Texas. Otero was powering his business with a generator.

He says that when Harvey came through, he could feel the building he was in vibrate from the sheer force of the wind.

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4 p.m.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is warning of the "potential for very dramatic flooding" from Harvey. He's expanded a state declaration of emergency from the state's original 30 counties to 50.

Abbott said Saturday that the biggest concern is the possibility of between 20 and 30 inches (51 to 76 centimeters) more of rain from Corpus Christi to Houston.

A Texas judge says there's one confirmed death from Harvey in the coastal city of Rockport. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Aransas County Judge C.H. "Burt" Mills Jr. also says 12 to 14 people were injured by Harvey, which came ashore Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Abbott says state military forces activated 1,300 service members to help with storm response. He said the Red Cross had opened 21 shelters holding about 1,450 people.

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3:30 p.m.

Officials say rainfall amounts have averaged 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 centimeters) in the last 12 hours across the county that includes the city of Houston.

A break in the rain from Harvey on Saturday afternoon is helping area channels recede. Average rainfall in the last three hours is less than 1 inch (2.5 centimeters). The Harris County Flood Control District is reporting some street flooding from northwest to east parts of the county.

A Texas judge says there is one confirmed death from Harvey in the coastal city of Rockport. The Austin American-Statesman reported Saturday that Aransas County Judge C.H. "Burt" Mills Jr. also says 12 to 14 people were injured by Harvey, which came ashore Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

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3:15 p.m.

The mayor of the island city of Port Aransas, Texas, says officials haven't been able to determine yet how much destruction was caused there by Hurricane Harvey because of the "massive" amount of damage they've so far encountered.

Mayor Charles Bujan said Saturday afternoon that no injuries or fatalities have been found in Port Aransas so far. He said that with the help of heavy equipment, authorities have only made it into the northernmost street in the city.

A Texas judge says there is one confirmed death from Harvey in the coastal city of Rockport. The Austin American-Statesman reported Saturday that Aransas County Judge C.H. "Burt" Mills Jr. also says 12 to 14 people were injured by Harvey, which came ashore Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Bujan had called for a mandatory evacuation of Port Aransas. But he says some people had stayed. He didn't know how many. The town has a population of about 3,800.

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3 p.m.

A Texas judge says there is one confirmed death from Harvey in the coastal city of Rockport.

The Austin American-Statesman reported Saturday that Aransas County Judge C.H. "Burt" Mills Jr. also says 12 to 14 people were injured by Harvey, which came ashore Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Harvey delivered a direct blow to Rockport, a city of about 10,000 people.

City leaders said at a news conference that their coastal community has been turned into a debris field and that the storm damaged a school, the library and other public buildings.

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2:15 p.m.

A Coast Guard official says helicopters rescued 18 people from boats and barges that were in distress because of Harvey.

Capt. Tony Hahn, commander of the Corpus Christi sector, said Saturday that the two helicopters managed to rescue the people when it became safe enough to do so. He says they retrieved three people from a fishing boat, four from a barge and 11 from two tugboats.

He says several boats sank in the Port of Corpus Christi and there will be a lot of work to do before it can reopen.

Hahn also says that since Corpus Christi is the third largest petrochemical port in the nation, there is the potential for chemical and crude oil spills, so they'll be watching for that.

He says the Port of Brownsville reopened Saturday morning and they haven't yet been able to assess the Port of Victoria.

Harvey came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

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2:12 p.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump has met with his Cabinet and other senior administration officials to discuss the federal response to the flooding and damage caused by Hurricane Harvey.

It issued a statement Saturday saying that Trump held a video conference from Camp David in which he instructed the relevant departments and agencies to "stay fully engaged and positioned to support his number one priority of saving lives."

It says Trump also reminded his department heads that the full impact of the storm won't be apparent for days, as residents of Texas and Louisiana recover from the heavy flooding and wind damage.

Harvey came ashore in Texas on Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm as it weakens while moving inland. Forecasters warn of the possibility of catastrophic flooding, including in Houston, the nation's fourth largest city.

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1:45 p.m.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says there have been no confirmed deaths linked to Tropical Storm Harvey.

Abbott said at a news conference Saturday in Austin that he's working with local officials and seeking information about the storm, but that there's nothing yet confirming that it killed anyone.

Abbott says it's too early to speculate as to how much property damage the storm has caused, but he has expanded his disaster declaration to cover more counties.

Harvey made landfall in Texas on Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane, but it has since been downgraded to a tropical storm as it weakens while moving inland.

Forecasters warn that the storm could cause catastrophic flooding as it lingers in the area for several days.

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1 p.m.

The National Hurricane Center has downgraded Harvey from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm.

But officials say they are still worried about potentially catastrophic rainfall that will continue for days, with more than 40 inches and flash flooding possible even well inland.

Harvey came ashore Friday along the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds, the most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade.

Experts say hurricanes almost always lose strength quickly after making landfall and moving away from the warm waters that fuel their winds. But the danger doesn't end there.

Harvey is expected to keep slowing and dumping rain through the middle of next week.

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12:45 p.m.

Hurricane Harvey has been dumping nearly 3 inches (76.2 millimeters) of rain per hour at times and has left some streets in flood-prone Houston submerged in water.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the chief administrator of the county that includes Houston, says flooding so far is a "minor issue." He says most of the watersheds are well within their banks "but we're not out of this."

Forecasters are predicting major flooding in the area by Tuesday. Houston has about 1,700 miles (2735.76 kilometers) of channels that drain to the Gulf of Mexico.

A handful of freeway service roads and streets and some scattered neighborhoods that normally experience high water in heavy rain have been flooded.

Families who escaped Rockport before Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coastal city are worried about neighbors and whether their homes are still standing.

Johanna Cochran says she's panicking over whether her house or the McDonald's where she works survived the storm, which dealt Rockport a direct blow. She and her boyfriend evacuated to a San Antonio shelter along with dozens of other coastal residents.

Another Rockport resident, Pamela Montes, says she's also worried about her friends and her home. She says she knows many people who stayed behind because "no one felt like it was going to hit."

Harvey made landfall Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a Category 1, which is the least powerful classification. Forecasters warn that it could cause catastrophic flooding over the coming days.

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11 a.m.

Texas officials say they are evacuating about 4,500 inmates from three state prisons in Brazoria County south of Houston because the nearby Brazos River is rising from Hurricane Harvey's heavy rain.

The Department of Criminal Justice says inmates from the Ramsey, Terrell, and Stringfellow Units in Rosharon are being taken by bus to other prisons in east Texas.

Additional food and water has been delivered to the prisons receiving the displaced inmates.

Harvey came ashore in Texas on Friday night as the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade. It has since weakened to a Category 1 storm.

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10:35 a.m.

The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Harvey's maximum sustained winds have decreased to about 75 mph (120 kph) and that the storm is now centered about 25 miles west of Victoria, Texas.

The center says in its 10 a.m. update that the storm is expected to weaken over the next 48 hours and to become a tropical storm by Saturday afternoon. The storm is moving north at 2 mph (3 kph).

The hurricane center says that although the winds are weakening, the storm could cause catastrophic flooding over the coming days.

Harvey came ashore in Texas on Friday night as the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade.

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10:15 a.m.

The Coast Guard has sent two helicopters to try to rescue the crews of three tugboats in distress near the Lydia Ann Channel near Port Aransas, Texas.

The Coast Guard at Corpus Christi says it received a mayday notification Saturday from crew members aboard the Belle Chase, Sandy Point and Sabine Pass.

Two MH-65 Dolphin helicopter aircrews have been sent to rescue the crews.

Texas is being pounded by Hurricane Harvey, which came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane Friday night but has since been downgraded to a Category 1 as it moves inland. Forecasters warn that it could cause catastrophic flooding in the coming days.

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9:40 a.m.

Hurricane Harvey has knocked out power to nearly 300,000 customers along the Texas coast and has dumped nearly 20 inches (half a meter) of rain in some places.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages about 90 percent of the state's electric grid, says there were 211,000 outages in the few hours after Harvey made landfall Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane.

That figure rose to 293,000 on Saturday, when the hurricane was downgraded to Category 1.

In addition to loss of power, emergency personnel in the communities northeast of Corpus Christi where Harvey made landfall are reporting loss of cellphone service and other forms of communication.

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9 a.m.

The rain was so torrential along Interstate 45 coming out of Galveston as Hurricane Harvey settled over southeast Texas that motorists had to stop under bridges to avoid driving in whiteout conditions.

The downpour on Saturday has also caused minor street flooding along a highway in Dickinson, about 25 miles northwest of Galveston.

Harvey, the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade, made landfall Friday night about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph (209 kph) winds.

It gradually weakened over the next several hours and the National Hurricane Center said that by 5 a.m. Saturday Harvey was downgraded to a Category 1.

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8:30 a.m.

A Texas mayor says Hurricane Harvey hit his coastal community "right on the nose" and left "widespread devastation."

Rockport Mayor Charles "C.J." Wax told The Weather Channel on Saturday that some homes and businesses were heavily damaged or even completely destroyed. Schools were also damaged.

He says emergency response system for the city of about 10,000 people has been hampered by the loss of cellphone service and other forms of communication.

Harvey made landfall Friday evening as a Category 4 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a Category 1. The National Hurricane Center says the threat in coming days is sustained rains that could unleash "catastrophic" flooding.

The city of Victoria, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Rockport, had received more than 16 inches of rain by Saturday morning.

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8:15 a.m.

Daybreak has revealed some of the damage caused when Hurricane Harvey came ashore overnight, including downed lamp posts and tree limbs in Corpus Christi and roof tiles torn off buildings.

Harvey came ashore along Texas' Gulf Coast on Friday night as the most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade. It has since been downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 1 hurricane, but the storm is expected to hover in the region for days and to dump as much as 40 inches (1 meter) of rain in places.

Corpus Christi's marina has been left nearly unscathed, save an awning ripped from a restaurant entrance and a wooden garbage bin uprooted and thrown.

An old white sport fishing boat was partially submerged and several boats' sails came unfurled and were ripped and whipping in wind gusts of more than 50 mph.